


Just Today

by hisvioleteyes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode 99, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, drow tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hisvioleteyes/pseuds/hisvioleteyes
Summary: during ep 99Essek has been visitting the Balleater in secret, hoping to get a chance of talking to The Mighty Nein, except he can never muster the courage to leave the room. This time he didn't have to.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 263





	Just Today

Turns out it’s much easier to show up at someone’s doorstep as their supervisor than their friend. 

Essek shouldn’t be surprised. His social skills were perfectly adequate, of course. Now, the personal investment, that he figured he could do without. And yet, wasn’t that why he had come here? Why he left his oh-so-lonely studies once again, his thoughts only able to focus on that dreaded interrogation in this same ship compartment just days before? He had to know. Had to know if he’d get more messages or requests or inappropriate jokes. Maybe even more spellcraft sessions or shared meals if he were lucky. The drow scoffed at himself through a bitter smile. “Selfish, selfish creature.”

_Are your intentions always that shallow?_

“Hey, it’s only my third try coming here,” he chuckles. “I can be selfish for a while longer.”

_As if you were planning on actually talking to them this time._

“I could talk to them this time.”

_Could have fooled me._

The drow sighed. “Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, talking to himself in an empty room on someone else’s ship, unannounced. The pinacle of elegance and portly attitude itself.” His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as his feet dejectedly landed on the wooden floor with a gentle thump.

What could he even say? Maybe if he had brought something. Pastries? That felt cheap, pandering. Jester would appreciate them, he was sure, but the others? How desperate was he? Walking over to sit at the same stool the Nein had sat him on, Essek stared down at his hands. Unshackled. Maybe they shouldn’t be. _They most definitely shouldn’t be_. How does one even begin to repent? Should he know? Did he miss something? His elbows fell to his knees, the Shadowhand’s way too free hands rubbed at his face.

_Have you made enough a fool out of yourself or are we not done wasting time yet?_

“I shouldn’t have come here.”

_You can’t salvage this. They never knew you. There’s no salvation, no kindness for a creature like you._

”I know.” The silent sob that broke through his words was what got him to acknowledge the tears. He was so baffled that the Prestidigitation came almost instinctively, but it did a poor job at cleaning him for long. Yup, he had to leave.

“Essek.”

The short drow almost fell off his chair. 

“Ah, Caleb...” Multiple Gods must have been punishing him then. How much had he heard? A tired, fanged smirk carved across the drow’s face but it did little to hide the tears still forming on his eyes or his thinly veiled shame at being caught. Essek tried not to think of how he looked with the warmth reaching the tips of his ears. _Pathetic._ He reluctantly stood up, facing the other man stepping out from the shadows. It felt futile to hold onto the sliver of dignity he may have held still but it wouldn’t stop him from trying, "I was just heading out, actually." The other wizard is silent and he hesitates.

As Caleb approached, his expression somber but hard to read, a few options ran through Essek’s head. He realized some of them even involved staying and it scared him so much he could feel the unfamiliar sting in his eyes getting even stronger. He had to leave, he could explain himself later when these despicable tears stopped at once.

The Shadowhand’s trained hands kept steady as they went through the hurried motions of a Teleportation spell, evading the other wizard’s looks. He would get home, send Caleb an explanation? What could explain all this? He was running out of excuses and there wasn’t much else left in him.

The spell was through, but he was not gone. He felt caloused fingers wrapping around his slender ones and looked up as pained blue eyes stared back at him behind the faint still aloft runes of Counterspell. 

His voice failed him again and he suddenly felt very small. “Well played, Widogast.” These tears could only get him in more trouble but he couldn’t _stop_. How had he lost this much control of the situation? His crooked smile faded, everything took too much effort, when had he gotten this tired?!

Suddenly, his hand was pulled in and arms enveloped his shoulders and the overwhelming smell of burnt sulfur and seawater filled his mind. _Hm, this can’t be good._ His then gravity abiding feet made it so the top of his head just barely grazed Caleb’s chin. The drow had to calm his breathing. He didn’t reciprocrate the hug, it didn’t even cross his mind.

“Unhand me.”

“Hm.”

“You barely know me. All of you.”

The arms around him brought him closer. “I’d like to if you could let me in.”

“Caleb Widogast, you are a fool.”

“Well, takes one to know one.” Essek almost laughed. Why, oh why did it have to be him? “Besides, Essek Thelyss, shouldn’t you be trying to regain our trust or something of the sort?”

“There’s nothing to tell you that could redeem me.”

“This is no redemption, this is just where we start.”

“You won’t like what you hear.”

“Forgive the bluntness, Shadowhand, but it’s again sounding an awful lot like _you_ wouldn’t like to hear it.” 

“No...No, I don’t think I would.”

A sigh escaped the human’s mouth, his hands squeezing the drow’s shoulders slightly. “Good.”

Essek felt small in Caleb’s arms, not unpleasantly so. More like all the mess within him could be contained and neatly put away if he could just stay like that for a while longer. The smirk crept back in. “Hm, for someone who’s done the things I have, progress feels like a joke in bad faith.”

“You talking of faith is joke enough.”

“Cheeky.”

“Change...it can feel like a lie at first, _ja_. It most likely will. ‘This isn’t me’, that voice, it sticks. But it’s not your friend.”

There’s a pause. “I have listened to myself only for so long. If I don’t I fear I might just fall apart.”

The one sided hug tightened, painfully so. “I won’t let that happen.” His fingers reached for the edges of the taller man’s coat, hung around his middle due to the warmer climate. Essek noticed then how Caleb’s arms were mostly bare against his back, the sleeves of his undershirt rolled up. He tried his hardest not to linger on that. _By the Gods, how tragic was he?_

“This is so unfair.”

“Hm.”

“I don’t deserve this.”

“As good a time as any to start earning it.” 

Essek winces. “It can’t be that simple.”

“Now, you listen to me, Thelyss.” Caleb pushed Essek’s shoulders back, the drow’s silver gaze met his. All the pain behind those eyes, that sad smile, so much a part of Caleb as the air he breathed. Essek wondered how similar their eyes were at that moment. “You don’t get to decide wich chances you get.” His voice harder, his accent shakier. It reminded Essek of a similar scolding from just days before and he shivered under that gaze. The intense, sternly gentle gaze of a man who believe in him. It was suffocating. “We can do good. We can do so much good.” And by the Light, Essek wanted to believe him. He needed to.

It was a quick movement and without a thought behind it.

He thought Caleb’s lips were softer than he had imagined. His stubble, substantial from the full week at sea, would have been painful against his mouth if it hadn’t been the best feeling Essek had had the pleasure to live through. His hands were back to grabbing the other wizard’s clothes and he couldn’t focus on a single thing. His scent, his taste, it was all entirely too overwhelming and his need to carefully catalogue each and every one of them was forgotten almost immediately. His head was on fire and he couldn’t care less.

And then he realized what he was doing.

The drow’s eyes shot open and he snapped back, hand clasping his mouth. Caleb looked at him, eyes just as wide, and a lovely red spreading behind his freckles that Essek did commit to memory the best he could.

“Uh-“

“Don’t.” Muffled.

“...Essek-“

“Don’t talk.”

“... _Ja,_ okay.” And then Caleb moved closer, gently holding the hand covering the drow’s mouth and moving it aside, "No talking," and they were kissing again. Essek didn’t have it in him to pull back. He would beat himself up tomorrow until the moons crashed into ether but that day Caleb’s arms held him and his lips tasted of salt and possibility and the future seemed so, so distant. He would stay selfish for today, just today.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading;;;;;;;;


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